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Embodied Cognition is Not What you Think it is
Andrew D Wilson1, Sabrina Golonka
1School of Social, Psychological and Communication Sciences, Leeds Metropolitan University Leeds, UK.
Frontiers in Psychology
|February 15, 2013
Summary
Embodied cognition extends beyond the body to include the environment. New research proposes a four-step method to analyze how cognitive agents use brain, body, and environment resources for tasks.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Embodied Cognition Research
Background:
- The theory of embodied cognition posits that cognition is deeply intertwined with the body and its interactions with the environment.
- Existing definitions often narrowly focus on how bodily states influence mental states.
- A more radical view suggests cognition extends beyond the brain, encompassing the body and environment as an integrated system.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a comprehensive framework for understanding and researching embodied cognition.
- To outline a four-step methodology for analyzing cognitive systems that span brain, body, and environment.
- To demonstrate the application of this framework using examples like the outfielder problem and A-not-B error.
Main Methods:
- Task Analysis: Characterizing tasks from a first-person perspective of a perceiving-acting agent.
- Resource Identification: Identifying all available resources (brain, body, environment) relevant to task completion.
- System Assembly: Analyzing how agents integrate these resources into a functional cognitive system.
- Performance Testing: Validating the proposed system by observing agent performance.
Main Results:
- The proposed four-step method provides a structured approach to studying extended cognition.
- Examples illustrate how cognitive tasks can be solved by dynamically assembling resources from the brain, body, and environment.
- The framework is applicable to complex cognitive phenomena, including language use.
Conclusions:
- Embodied cognition is a broader phenomenon than commonly assumed, involving extended systems.
- The outlined methodology enables rigorous investigation of cognition as an extended, embodied process.
- This approach offers new theoretical and methodological tools to advance the field of cognitive science.
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